Ultimate Spider-Man is a video game based on the comic book of the same name by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley. The game was released for most sixth generation consoles, including PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, Nintendo DS, Game Boy Advance, and Microsoft Windows as well as a mobile phone game. Treyarch, who made the console games based on the Spider-Man movies, developed the console game, while Vicarious Visions developed the Nintendo DS and Game Boy Advance versions and Beenox ported the Microsoft Windows version from consoles.

Stylistically, it differs from its predecessor, Spider-Man 2, in that it employs what has been dubbed Comic Inking Animation technology, a form of cel shading intended to simulate the appearance of a comic-book.

While originally thought to be canonical to the Ultimate Spider-Man comics, It is unclear what parts of the game take place in the continuity of the comic. The story arc "War of the Symbiotes" loosely adapts the events of the game into Ultimate Universe continuity, while shortening and changing many of the story elements.

Gameplay:
In Ultimate Spider-Man the player can experience a free-roaming city environment that covers Manhattan and Queens. The player starts in story-mode where the game automatically switches between Spider-Man and Venom. Spider-Man travels by web swinging, but the player must shoot a web at an actual building to swing, much like in its previous game Spider-Man 2. Spider-Man uses acrobatic attacks. Venom travels by using his symbiote to pull himself and by performing massive jumps. Venom attacks using his claws and tendrils. Venom can also throw cars at targets and perform much more brutal attacks, including eating people in order to gain health.

As the game progresses, Parker/Spider-Man and the player will have certain City Goals to accomplish in order to continue the storyline.

There are additional activities throughout the game such as finding secret tokens, landmark tokens, comic book covers and competing in trick races.

Spider-Man plays similarly to his Spider-Man 2 incarnation, using web shots as his main method of transportation and combat, while Venom has to resort to jumping for long distances. Venom's attacks are also generally stronger than Spider-man's. Venom (like Spider-Man) can also scale buildings. Venom (as previously stated) can also leech life from enemies and civilians. The player has to do this constantly, as Venom's health is continuously depleting, even when he is not being attacked (the suit is feeding on Eddie Brock, so Eddie uses other people to feed it instead).